Looks like MS has done it again, by "sort-of" implementing a "feature".

I use Entourage (Ent) but have never really used the Apple Address Book (AB). But in order to sync to a cell phone, I have used 3rd party tools to sync my Ent data into AB, so that could then use iSync for sending numbers to my phone. With the latest Entourage upgrade, I figured I would not have to use a 3rd party tool for the Ent-AB step. I was wrong, MS has implemented "syning" in a half-#$%ed manner.

First, when using Ent's new sync-to-AB feature, the contact's Categories are NOT sent to AB. This is a gross oversight their part. I for example use "categories" to indicate which people are to be synced to my mobile phone (so only those in that category are sent to the phone). Other 3rd party tools take the Ent contact info, with categories intact, and send that all to AB. The categories become "groups" in AB., and you can select which group(s) to sync with your phone.

With Ent’s new syncing feature, the category data ignored, making this much more difficult.

Second - be very careful what you do with your AB entries once you sync them. I clearly set up Entourage so that the contacts would ONLY be synced FROM Ent TO AB. So, I did my syncing, and then saw that what was imported into AB was not sufficient (lack of Categories-groups). So then proceeded to delete all of the contacts from my AB (figuring I would go back to the 3rd party tool ... that actually works). However when I deleted the item from AB, ENTOURAGE DELETED ALL OF THE SAME ITEMS FROM ITS CONTACT LIST!

This happened even after I CLEARLY set up Entourage to have the sync ONLY go FROM Ent TO the AB.

Luckily I had a backup, but without that, all of my contact data would have been trashed.

So be very careful about this new Entourage "feature". Its not implemented in as complete a manner as it should be. Plus, the "sync" direction does NOT hold up in actual use, and you risk losing all of your contacts if you are not careful.

I will continue to use the 3rd party solution to get contact info from Ent into AB.

As usual, MS has implemented a feature JUST enough so they ca get Marketing copy from it, without much concern for its real-world usability.